Illustrations of Northern Antiquities (1814), or to give its full title Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, from the Earlier Teutonic and Scandinavian Romances; Being an Abstract of the Book of Heroes, and Nibelungen Lay; with Translations of Metrical Tales, from the Old German, Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic Languages; with Notes and Dissertations, was a pioneering work of comparative literature which provided translations and abstracts of various works written in medieval Germany and Scandinavia.
[12] In consequence a planned second volume was never published,[13] nor did Weber's hopes that the project might lead to "a periodical publication on the subject of ancient Romance and Antiquities in general, Foreign & British" come to fruition.
It has been suggested that some form of this ballad was quoted by Shakespeare in King Lear and provided Milton with the plot of Comus, though the Shakespearean scholar George Lyman Kittredge commented that it was "manifestly of modern composition".
He described Scott's contribution as "interesting" and Weber's abstract of the Nibelungenlied as one of the most curious parts of the book, but reserved most of his praise for the poetical talent and industry of Robert Jamieson, a man who "well understands the art of combining the useful with the agreeable", and urged him to "gratify the curiosity which he has excited" by publishing something similar on Russian, Latvian or Estonian literature.
[29] He deplored Jamieson's decision to translate the Danish ballads into Scots rather than English, finding the result largely incomprehensible,[30] but he praised the Eyrbyggja abstract as "truly valuable".